第七章。教堂。
就在这样一座新贝德福德城里，有一座捕鲸人教堂，那些不久便要驶往印度洋或太平洋的忧郁渔夫，很少有不赶在礼拜天去那里走一走的。我确信自己便去了。
从我第一次晨间散步回来后，我又为这桩特别的差事出了门。天空已从晴朗、寒冷带太阳，变成了横飞的雨夹雪和迷雾。把自己裹进那件叫作熊皮的粗毛外套里，我逆着倔强的风暴往前挣。进门后，我发现零零落落聚着一小群水手，还有水手的妻子和寡妇。四处笼罩着闷住的寂静，只不时地被风暴的尖啸划破。每一个沉默的敬拜者似乎都存心与人隔开坐着，仿佛各人的沉默哀伤都是孤岛，无从诉说。牧师还没到；这些沉默的男男女女的岛屿便稳稳地坐着，眼睛盯着讲坛两侧砌进墙里的几块带黑边的石碑。其中三块大致如下，但我并不敢说一字不差：——
谨此纪念约翰·塔尔博特，年十八岁，
于1836年11月1日，在巴塔哥尼亚外、荒凉岛附近，
落水失踪。
此碑由其姊 erected 以志其念。
谨此纪念罗伯特·朗、威利斯·埃勒里、纳撒·科尔曼、
沃尔特·坎尼、塞思·梅西与塞缪尔·格莱格，
伊丽莎号船某艇之桨手，
1839年12月31日，于太平洋外海渔场，
被一鲸拖曳而去，终至不见。
此大理石碑由幸存同船伙伴敬立。
谨此纪念已故以宰基尔·哈迪船长，
1833年8月3日，于日本海岸，
在艇首为抹香鲸所杀。
此碑由其遗孀敬立。
抖落冰壳帽子和外套上的雨夹雪，我在近门处坐下，侧过身，却惊讶地发现魁魁格就在身旁。为这肃穆场景所动，他脸上带着一种难以置信的好奇与疑惑的神情。这野人是当场唯一似乎注意到我进来的人；因为他是唯一不识字的人，因而也就没有去读墙上那些冷冰冰的铭文。那些刻着名字的水手，其亲属中是否有人此刻就在会众里，我不知道；但这渔事中有太多无人记录的意外，而且在场的几位妇人分明带着——即便没穿戴——某种无尽哀伤的面容，以至于我确信，坐在我面前的正是这样的人：她们那不愈的心里，一见这些凄凉石碑，便同感旧伤又渗出了血。
哦！你们这些死者埋在绿草下的人；你们站在花丛中能说——这里，这里躺着我亲爱的人；你们不懂这样一种胸怀里盘踞的荒凉。那些黑边大理石里空无骨灰，是多么苦涩的空白！那些不动的铭文里是多么绝望！那些似要啃噬一切信仰、拒绝给无墓而亡者以复活的字句里，是多么致命的虚空与不由自主的背弃。那些碑立在这儿，倒不如立在象岛石窟里。
在何种生灵的普查中，死去的世人也被算入；为何一句天下通用的谚语说他们
In this same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman’s Chapel, and few are
the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific, who
fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot. I am sure that I did not.
Returning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out upon this
special errand. The sky had changed from clear, sunny cold, to driving
sleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the cloth called
bearskin, I fought my way against the stubborn storm. Entering, I found
a small scattered congregation of sailors, and sailors’ wives and
widows. A muffled silence reigned, only broken at times by the shrieks
of the storm. Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart
from the other, as if each silent grief were insular and
incommunicable. The chaplain had not yet arrived; and there these
silent islands of men and women sat steadfastly eyeing several marble
tablets, with black borders, masoned into the wall on either side the
pulpit. Three of them ran something like the following, but I do not
pretend to quote:—
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN TALBOT, Who, at the age of eighteen, was
lost overboard, Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia, _November_
1_st_, 1836. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS SISTER.
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY, NATHAN COLEMAN,
WALTER CANNY, SETH MACY, AND SAMUEL GLEIG, Forming one of the boats’
crews OF THE SHIP ELIZA Who were towed out of sight by a Whale, On the
Off-shore Ground in the PACIFIC, _December_ 31_st_, 1839. THIS MARBLE
Is here placed by their surviving SHIPMATES.
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF The late CAPTAIN EZEKIEL HARDY, Who in the bows
of his boat was killed by a Sperm Whale on the coast of Japan, _August_
3_d_, 1833. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS WIDOW.
Shaking off the sleet from my ice-glazed hat and jacket, I seated
myself near the door, and turning sideways was surprised to see
Queequeg near me. Affected by the solemnity of the scene, there was a
wondering gaze of incredulous curiosity in his countenance. This savage
was the only person present who seemed to notice my entrance; because
he was the only one who could not read, and, therefore, was not reading
those frigid inscriptions on the wall. Whether any of the relatives of
the seamen whose names appeared there were now among the congregation,
I knew not; but so many are the unrecorded accidents in the fishery,
and so plainly did several women present wear the countenance if not
the trappings of some unceasing grief, that I feel sure that here
before me were assembled those, in whose unhealing hearts the sight of
those bleak tablets sympathetically caused the old wounds to bleed
afresh.
Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who standing
among flowers can say—here, _here_ lies my beloved; ye know not the
desolation that broods in bosoms like these. What bitter blanks in
those black-bordered marbles which cover no ashes! What despair in
those immovable inscriptions! What deadly voids and unbidden
infidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse
resurrections to the beings who have placelessly perished without a
grave. As well might those tablets stand in the cave of Elephanta as
here.
In what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind are included;
why it is that a universal proverb says of them, that they tell no
tales, though containing more secrets than the Goodwin Sands; how it is
that to his name who yesterday departed for the other world, we prefix
so significant and infidel a word, and yet do not thus entitle him, if
he but embarks for the remotest Indies of this living earth; why the
Life Insurance Companies pay death-forfeitures upon immortals; in what
eternal, unstirring paralysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet lies
antique Adam who died sixty round centuries ago; how it is that we
still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are
dwelling in unspeakable bliss; why all the living so strive to hush all
the dead; wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify
a whole city. All these things are not without their meanings.
But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these
dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.
It needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the eve of a
Nantucket voyage, I regarded those marble tablets, and by the murky
light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the whalemen who
had gone before me. Yes, Ishmael, the same fate may be thine. But
somehow I grew merry again. Delightful inducements to embark, fine
chance for promotion, it seems—aye, a stove boat will make me an
immortal by brevet. Yes, there is death in this business of whaling—a
speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what
then? Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death.
Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true
substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too
much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking
that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees
of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is
not me. And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat
and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot.
